The Brain Alan and Rob An alien organism tries to take over the world through a cable-access evangelical television show. No When we picked this one out at the video store, we were presented with a choice of two movies titled "The Brain" -- one a horrible 50’s science fiction film -- the other being this one. I feel we made an interesting, but ultimately fatal choice. There’s no question that this atrocity killed more than a little of our desire to watch and evaluate bad movies. It is only after a number of weeks that I am now able to write about my experience. The general idea is that this big evil brain thing (resembling a Mad Ball, if that means anything to you) can make people hallucinate and do crazy, crazy things. And anyone who isn’t affected is told they need to get some psychiatric help at the local foundation for good health, which happens to be run a elderly preacher who serves the brain (and puts on a cable show that comes on right after the Lars from Mars Show). Enter one high school rebel who’s so smart that he’s bored with everything, and who also happens to dislike the vibes the preacher man is giving off. Forced to seek psychiatric counsel by his parents, he discovers that this may not really be "psychiatric counsel" at all, but some kind of brainwashing (although he doesn’t seem to mind when he hallucinates that the less-than-sexy lab assistant is taking off her shirt). His escape comprises about 3/4 of the movie, and is replete with car crashes, wigging out at the local diner, random hallucinations, chainsaw rippings, "Yakety-sax!"esque chases with the fat lab guy, and most importantly, frequent glimpses of a sign at the foundation which proclaims "Warning! Sodium in use!" although no sodium is seen until the end. Which, owing to the fact that the sign was introduced in the first 25 minutes of the film and sodium is highly explosive, makes for a less than surprise ending, doesn’t it? Super glue on the seat -- is that really a funny prank?; the psychiatric patient who nobody seems to care what happens to; the unambiguously gay friend from the diner; the steering-wheel triangle turning into the brain sequence; a final chase scene where the brain is pushed rather obviously on a cart; the incredibly important "taking out the trash" finale that will leave you wanting more!; credits which cautioned something like "Warning! The scenes involving sodium were a dramatic representation. Sodium is a highly explosive chemical when mixed with water. Do not attempt it!"